Sickbed entertainments

When I’m unwell I tend to take to my bed with a pile of books. Or, these days, a loaded up ereader.

I’ve never been one to watch videos from my sickbed. For some reason the moving picture fails to soothe.

When ill the best books for me are ones that don’t require too much concentration. Plot and characterization are sufficient, I don’t need a deeper message.

Books read or flicked through this illness:

Dorothy Dunnett, The Game of Kings (still reading this one. Complex plot and many literary/classical allusions)
Josephine Hart, Life Saving: Why We Need Poetry: Introductions to the Great Poets
Maggie O’Farrell, Instructions for a Heatwave
Graeme Simsion, The Rosie Project
Maggie O’Farrell, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
Dennis O’Driscoll (ed), The Bloodaxe Book of Poetry Quotations
Caroline Dunford, A Death in the Family

I was just thinking the other day that I’d had a nice long run of avoiding upper respiratory tract infections. Well, that run ended. Happily I seem to be recovering, although there is a residual cough still.

In total I’ve been sick for five days. It’s just unfortunate that three of the five days coincided with a long weekend I’d planned. Still, looking on the positive side of things, apart from the time to read, the weather’s been fine (beautiful mild clear autumn days in Perth at the moment), and I’m glad to have had the chihuahuas to keep me company.

Now I need to get back into the routine, and catch up.